![]() ![]() “We’ve been a big part of the internationalization of anime,” says Colin Decker, Funimation’s CEO. Eventually, though, these awkward localizations faded from view, as specialist companies like Funimation, founded in 1994, began distributing anime VHSes and DVDs. American-French TV production company DIC removed Sailor Moon’s mature themes. Pokémon’s onigiri rice balls became jelly donuts in the US. Sometimes, symbols of Japanese culture eroded in the process. A decade later, Cartoon Network, specifically its Toonami programming block, would inject Sailor Moon and Dragon Ball Z into the consciousness of millennial America. In the ’80s, before the genre had entered the American mainstream, resourceful otaku ordered whispered-about anime from enthusiast magazines and local video shops, sometimes pirating them to add in their own translations. At the same time, Netflix is among the biggest contemporary shake-ups in the 60-year history of Western anime distribution. A media company, maybe, and definitely a tech company. It would be a serious mischaracterization to call Netflix a distribution company. “I am,” I respond, “for better or for worse.”ĭragon’s Dogma is a Netflix anime based on a Capcom video game. “Oh really? You are a fan yourself?” he asks. When I tell him I hid my anime figurines for the interview-a corporate-culture compulsion-he seems surprised. At one point, he excitedly shows me the prize of his collection, a replica of the Smithsonian’s saber-toothed tiger skull. ![]() On Google Meet from his home in Tokyo, Sakurai is all smiles and easy candor, seated in front of a wood table scattered with dinosaur fossils. “I found out after I joined that they were serious about it,” Sakurai says. Netflix executives could just drop a stack of cash on licensing a well-liked shonen or two and call it a day. Even then, Netflix was regarded as a streaming platform, not exactly a studio. When he was interviewing to be the company’s chief anime producer back in 2017, Netflix suits insisted he’d get to form superhero teams of anime creators, manage the direction of a couple shows. For a while, Taiki Sakurai wasn’t sure Netflix was serious about anime. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |